New York

I had one of the top ten dishes of the year today in the middle of what could have been a dreary day. It was raining and I was limping around puddles on my way to a lunch meeting in Soho.

I had just come from the podiatrist, my throbbing foot wrapped to within an inch of its life to protect the plantar fascia, the ligament that goes along my arch to my heel.

I had injured it, as athletes will do, in some moment of extreme competitive zeal, which I cannot at this moment recall. It only hurts when I walk, Mother.

So, I was in pain, I was late, I was wet, I was peckish. Not a good potential lunch partner.

I was meeting two fine fellows who work for my book publisher, so they know their way around a lunch table. They had chosen Balaboosta on Mulberry Street and I’m glad they did.

There's a place in New Jersey where you can have a New York milkshake with your sushi. Seriously. Baumgart's Café, name aside, is Asian with a quirky edge. I spent hours on their menu and I have to say that you can get anything. There's ice cream, of course, because they started as a soda fountain, but then the fun begins with sesame chicken, pastrami, gazpacho, duck crêpes, fries, salads, wraps, pot pies, an entire sushi menu, all your Chinese favorites, omelets, cappuccino, key lime pie, smoothies, egg creams and root beer floats. Those egg creams say we're not in Kansas. Where we are is across the Hudson in Edgewater.

We're zooming to dinner, as much as anyone gets to zoom which is not very much and certainly not in a New York minute. And not when your GPS lady freezes; I don't know why she freaked as soon as I crossed into New York. From Baumgart's patio, I stare longingly at the Upper West Side, the Empire State Building and all the snazzy real estate since the last time I was here. We love Manhattan even from afar but not too far.

We all know the few things in our lives that give us status above and beyond our own reality.

Our dog, Buzz (an apricot poodle that bears an uncanny resemblance to Rod Stewart), always attracts attention, is far more famous than we are – and prettier! Telling people I am a union member (OK, it’s SAG) has always given me a certain social gravitas among my political friends. Doing a book on Richard Wagner has made me a “distinguished visitor” at the American Academy in Berlin… not a way in which I am normally described. I have a relative – John Singleton Mosby – that brings Southerners to their knees in a show of respect when his name is mentioned, but white smoke rises when people find out Bill and I have a Monday night table at Rao’s – the impossible dream. Or, as they might say when you call for a reservation, FUGGEDABOUDIT!

Monday night at Rao’s isn’t your average Monday night somewhere else. Rao’s, in Spanish Harlem and in the same family since 1896, with only ten tables and one seating is ‘famiglia’, and as such is closed over the weekend. Monday night is its weekly re-birth and the crowd is always gleeful, festive and full of song. (Yes they sing at Rao’s … but that is another story.) Monday night regulars, besides the characters that look like the cast from Goodfellas – and sometimes are, have included Sonny Grasso (the real cop from the French Connection) sportswriter, Dick Schaap (when Dick passed away Billy Crystal asked in his eulogy who would inherit the table), Ron Perlman, Woody Allen, and Judge Eddie Torres (who wrote Carlito’s Way and Q and A). Also seen Monday nights, Sophia Loren, Senator Alphonse D’Amato, Mike Wallace, Sharon Stone, Martin Scorsese, Don Rickles, Pierce Brosnan – the list is endless.

A friend of mine says that all the restaurants in New York City are good. Her belief is that is that with so many options, only quality survives. I’m not one to put her theory to the test as I have been to NYC only three times in my life and on two of the trips “fine dining” was definitely not an option. On this most recent visit, I was with my husband and 17-year-old daughter—showing her “the city” before dropping her off at college in Massachusetts. Our plan was to have one special dinner. If all the restaurants in NYC are so good, then how do you decide where to go?

I knew exactly where I wanted to go. I wanted to go to Blue Hill in Greenwich Village, and no, not because the Obama’s went there on their “NYC date night” (although how cool is that?). I wanted to go to Blue Hill not only because I love (obviously) the whole farm-to-table philosophy, but because I have had the opportunity to test Blue Hill Chef Dan Barber’s recipes in the Bon Appetit test kitchen. Dan Barber’s recipes are awesome—any one of these on Epicurious will please. After experiencing his creative treatment to vegetables—Cauliflower Steak and Kale Chips, I knew that if I ever had the chance to eat at Blue Hill, I would.